Post a Review and Make Huge Money – The Winners

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A couple months ago, I launched a Review Contest. The idea is extremely simple: you write a review of Dukeo on your own blog, follow a few rules, and you’re automatically entered to win a cash prize.

It is time to announce the winner of this contest and to share some interesting data about contests for the record.

Bur first of all, I’d like to thank all the people who entered this review contest. I really value feedback from my readers and I learned a lot by reading these reviews. A lot of the suggestions have bee taken into account for the redesign that is going live today.

Contest Entries

Let’s start by giving a list of all the entries I received for this contest. I always enjoy sharing some link-love! In that list, the reviews are NOT posted in preference order. They are ordered by submission date.

The very first review that I received was written by Elliott Scott on the blog The Climb, A Lifetime. The review is titled: “Can Dukeo’s Blogging Methods Be Trusted?”. Elliott’s post is well structured in several sections and goes over several aspects of Dukeo, from trust to design.

The second review was written by Howard Lee Harkness on the blog MakeMoneyBlogging.net. His review titled: “Review: Dukeo.com Blog” focuses on Dukeo’s content. It mostly puts the accent on the fact that we usually disagree when discussing with Howard in comments.

The third review, published by Laura Brooke-Smith on her blog Building Blog Bridges is titled: “Dukeo and Your BLOGGING Success“. In this review, Laura details her first experience with Dukeo. I must say that it was very interesting to read how someone experienced this blog when visiting for the very first time.

The next review was posted by an anonymous blogger on her blog Casudi. Her review, titled: “Review My Blog ~ Receive $1000 @dukeo”, goes straight to the point by criticising the lightbox popup I use to collect emails for my list. Then she goes after Dukeo’s design by saying that it’s not good, but she doesn’t explain at all what are the problems.

Next is the review published by Ivan de Leon on his blog Unos Tips is titled: “Concurso de Análisis de Dukeo“. As you can guess, this is the first review written in a foreign language that I received. Well done Ivan.

The next review was posted by John on his blog Worenhome. This review, titled: “Review for dukeo“, came in as a surprise because I didn’t really know that I had readers in China.

Holly Jahangiri was the next person to submit a review for this contest. Her review, titled: “Dukeo Review and Contest Entry” made some very interesting points about both content and design at Dukeo.

The next review was written by Robert Connor from Extra Cash Online. His well-written, easy-to-read review titled: “Dukeo.com Review – Go Ahead Make My Day!”, lists the good, the bad and the ugly about Dukeo.

Hadass Eviatar was the next person to submit a review. Her review, titled: “Website Review – DUKEO” is short and to the point. There is no need to write thousands of words to enter this contest, and Hadass understood it perfectly.

The next review in line was written by Tony Greene on 113TIDBITS. This review, modestly titled: “Dukeo Review”, is another example of someone who understood perfectly that there is no need to write a whole book to get entered in this contest. Well done Tony.

Not long after, I received another review, written by Corinne Rodrigues on her blog From 7Eight. Corinne goes straight to the point is her review titled: “Noteworthy Blogs: Dukeo“. No fluff, no semantics, no long post. A short blog post just to enter the competition.

Another review I received was written by Kim Lavigne on A Major Media Productions. This very well written post titled: “Dukeo Blog Review Contest $1000″, stays extremely general, but it does the job to enter the contest.

The following review was written by Pat Couturier on his blog Pat’s Internet Marketing Training. His review is titled: “How to learn SEO for WP that will get you ton of traffic from Google”. Pat’s review is mostly focused on my detailed WordPress SEO guide.

Ivin Idris posted the next review on his personal blog. His review, titled: “Review of the Dukeo Blog“, is concise and to the point. I’m not a big fan of the “good, bad and ugly” structure of the post. It was already used by other reviewers before.

The next review in line was written by Lisa buben on her blog Inspire To Thrive. Her review, titled: “Dukeo Review and Your Chance to Win Contest” is quite interesting. I like the fact that Lisa included a Slideshare presentation in the review. (Lisa, I’ll answer your question about Commentluv soon in a post)

Why it worked and what I learned

I would also like to share some things that I learned from running this contest on Dukeo.

Most of you probably don’t know it, but it’s actually the fourth contest I had on this blog. And it’s been one of the most successful of the 4. I think it goes down to a few reasons:

I spent some time searching for places to promote the contest (outside of my blog). As a result, I posted numerous times about it on Twitter, I also submitted it in forums and websites dedicated to online contests.

I had a HUGE banner displayed on every single page of Dukeo. When a visitor was coming to my blog, he simply couldn’t miss this contest.

There is a viral element to this contest: the entries for the contest have to link to the contest page. Whenever someone read one of the entries, they knew that it was written for a chance to win $1000 and that they could also do it.

My biggest regret is that I should have used guest posting to promote my contest on other big blogs. I’m pretty sure it would have brought some good exposure to the contest and I would have received more entries.

Another thing that I learned, is that, even if the rules are extremely simple (I was not asking for very complicated things), there are always some people who try to bend the rules or are not being honest all the way. Since I value honesty both in business and in my personal life, I simply refused this kind of entries.

The most important lesson I take away from this contest is all the feedback I got from all these bloggers. It’s extremely valuable to know what people like or don’t like about your website. Never forget that your website is made for your audience, and that without them, you would be nothing.

Once again, I’d like to thank all the bloggers who took some of their time to review Dukeo. I really value your opinion!

Contest winners!

I know it’s what you’re waiting for, so let’s put an end to the wait and announce the 2 winners.

As explained in the rules, the first prize winner has been handpicked by me based on quality, honesty and originality, and the second prize winner was randomly drawn by writing down the entries’ domain names on pieces of paper, putting them in a bowl, and randomly drawing one with my innocent hand.

Let’s start with the handpicked review…

I have to be honest here: it’s been a real struggle to pick only 1 review from all the entries because a lot of bloggers did an amazing job at reviewing Dukeo, and the overall quality of reviews was a lot higher than what I expected.

The review is very well structured with 4 sections: the contest rules, what she likes, what she doesn’t like, and why she reviewed Dukeo.

I also appreciate the fact that she is completely honest in her review and she was not afraid to say the negative about Dukeo.

I was specifically asking in the contest rules to be honest, and she delivered by making some very interesting points that will probably shift a little the focus of this blog.

Next is the random winner. Nothing much to say here… As I already explained, I wrote the reviews’ domain names on papers, folded them, put everything in a bowl, mix, and randomly picked one with my innocent hand.

The second prize goes to: Donna Anderson from Examiner.com. Yes, you read that right… This lady has got to be the luckiest person on earth.

As explained in the contest rules, the same person could win the 2 prizes. I didn’t really expect it to be the case, so you can imagine my surprise when I randomly picked the paper with her name on it!

The winner has already been contacted by email and should receive her prize shortly.

I’d like to give a huge “THANK YOU” to all the people who participated. I learned a lot about Dukeo from your reviews and I highly appreciate the feedback I received. The most rewarding thing when running a blog is certainly the feedback from the readers.

Congratulations to Donna and to the others for participating in the contest. Are you going to make changes at Dukeo based on the reviews? I know you learned about how to run contests, but what changes are you making to the blog based on their reviews?

Hey Carolyn, I’ve learned many things thanks to this contest. This time I was focusing more on the perceived value of Dukeo’s content rather than making changes to the interface.

I think I dramatically improved navigation already thanks to my previous contest, and I don’t want to spend days tweaking details that will appeal only to a small portion of my readers.

One of the things I learned is that going against consensus is not an easy task and it requires additional educational work that I wouldn’t have to do if I was doing the same as everyone else. I see many people asking why I don’t use CommentLuv, why I don’t use a system such as Disqus or why I have a minimum length for comments. The answer seems completely obvious to me but I realize that a lot of people don’t get it.

To make it short, why do people post comments on blogs?

What people say: 20% to get links back, 80% to interact,
Truth: 80% to get links back, 20% to add to the discussion.

The comment section of a blog is the reflection of its community. I prefer having a listening community that seldoms post comments, but do it to genuinely interact with others, rather that useless boatloads of “nice post”, “loved it”, “will use that soon”.

Getting positive feedback is always appreciated but people hide their thirst for links behind short ego-stroking comments.

Anyway, I digress a lot and I’ll have to write a full-length post about this anyway :)

Holly Jahangiri

Congratulations to Donna! I’m always surprised, Steven, when $1000 is at stake and only 20-30 people bother to enter. I think this says a lot about people’s lack of optimism. I can almost hear them thinking, “Why bother? I never win anything, anyway.” It becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy; if you don’t enter anything, of course you never win.